consistency, to defend the people. Thus mediating between extremes, you will preserve this island long, and preserve her with a certain degree of renown. Thus faithful to the constitution of the country, you will command and ensure her tranquillity; for our best authority with the people is, protection afforded against the ministers of the crown. It is not public clamour, but public injury, that should alarm you; your high ground of expostulation with your fellow subjects has been your services; the free trade you have given the merchant, and the free constitution you have given the island! Make your third great effort, preserve them; and with them preserve, unaltered, your own calm sense of public right, the dignity of the parliament, the majesty of the people, and the powers of the island! Keep them unsullied, uncovenanted, uncircumscribed, and unstipendiary! These paths are the paths to glory; and let me add, these ways are the ways of peace: so shall the prosperity of your country, though without a tongue to thank you, yet laden with the blessings of constitution and of commerce, bear attestation to your service, and wait on your progress with involuntary praise!"

The principal arguments, urged on this important question, being contained in this eloquent and convincing speech of Mr. Grattan, renders a further insertion of the debates unnecessary. Leave was given to bring in the bill, by a majority of one, 127 opposing it. So small a majority, and so formidable an opposition, caused this measure to be abandoned, after exciting the

attention of the nation upwards of seven months, to the general satisfaction of Ireland; nor was the news thereof ill received in England.

The peasantry of some counties, particularly Kilkenny, raised some disturbances at this time, about tithes; to suppress which, the catholic clergy exerted themselves, as usual in similar cases. This was doing their duty as Christian pastors, and as prudent monitors. Their endeavours failing, parliament interposed.

As during Pitt's administration, every occurrence, that offered a pretext for enlarging the influence of the crown, and undermining the Irish constitution, was greedily seized on, a bill, entitled An act for improving the police of the city of Dublin, was introduced by the solicitor general, before a thin house, during the assizes, when country gentlemen attended there. The sense entertained of this attack on liberty, by the city of Dublin, appears from the petition of the freemen and freeholders, presented to the house of commons. It stated, that the bill manifestly tended to subvert public liberty, in the most essential points; that, if passed into a law, it would give a very great additional and most dangerous influence to the crown, in matters which intimately regard not only political freedom, but the personal liberty and domestic quiet of individuals; an influence, which every honest Irishman feels to be at least as extensive as is consistent with the safety of the constitution. That it would he grievous, in point of taxation; and place the first corporation of the kingdom under the in

fluence of the minister. In the commons, Mr. Conolly strongly opposed the principle of the bill. "It seems it would be urged," he said, "that no person has a suspicion of the bill: I suspect the principles of it, because I suspect administration-I suspect its intention, because I suspect administration-I suspect an administration, that promises this country trade, in lieu of which she gives us £140,000 in taxes—I suspect an administration, that when we ask for bread gives us a stone. And though I wish for order and regulation, still I am convinced, the profits arising from that bill may be purchased too dearly-I see, by one clause, you intend to take the arms out of the hands of the Volunteers. When I reflect on the memorable propositions of 1785, and the sensible measures proposed in 1786, it staggers my faith, and induces me to say, that surely the people ought to be consulted, when you go to alter the constitution. A bill of such magnitude, to insist to hurry it before the house, shews there is a snake in the grass, to crush which every gentleman ought attend." The bill, notwithstanding, was read a second time, the day after its introduction, and passed into a law with the utmost expedition.

Two great objects of this bill were, the disarming the volunteers, and bringing the city of Dublin under ministerial influence. The volunteers had incurred the displeasure of the English government. They must, therefore, be disbanded, and a force, more subservient to the will of the government, substituted in their place. It

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was of some consequence, also, to reduce the metropolis, the seat of government and legislation, to passive obedience, like a venal borough. When we consider how quickly advantage was taken of the Right-boy disturbances, to strike this weighty blow, we might lawfully surmise, that they were excited by the emissaries of Cecil the second, whose administration was a compound of hypocrisy, fraud; and tyranny.

To plaister this wound, inflicted on the constitution, Orde brought forward a plan of public education, in the introduction to which, he observed, that there were endowed schools in Ireland, and some richly endowed; but, that the richer the endowment, the worse they answered the intention of the founder; as the master, content with his income, paid little or no attention at all, to the education of youth. This plan never took effect; and was, probably, intended, as a tub to the whale, to amuse a discontented public.

In the year 1787, the disturbances still continued and even encreased, when the parliament voted an address to his majesty, in which, they lament the outrages committed in certain parts of this kingdom, promising to use all the means in their power for suppressing of the same, and maintaining the rights of the established clergy. Mr. Connoly's opinion of these troubles, delivered in his speech on the address, coincides with that formed by myself before I saw it. "I do not rise to move an amendment of, or alteration to the resolution as it now stands. But I shall

trouble the house with a few observations on the unhappy state which it represents the kingdom to be in.

Now, supposing that these disturbances are as extensive as have been represented, but I hope in God they are not-supposing they are as formidable as government have represented them in their proclamations, are not the laws at present in being sufficient to restore order? They are abundantly so, if properly enforced. And hence, my suspicion is excited, when I behold administration attempting by insinuation to establish the necessity of new laws for unnecessary purposes, or for something worse. I am convinced that had administration been active, they might have checked these disturbances in embryo. I will ask, can any man entertain a doubt of it? And when they did not, what can we infer from it, but that there was some dark design in suffering them to come to maturity?

This may seem to be a reflection upon our worthy chief governor-I know him to be an honest man, and the friend of both countries, and it is not him I suspect-it is the administration. And why do I suspect administration? Because of their conduct on the propositions; when they wish to prove, and to have us believe, that the returned propositions were identically the same as the original ten, and were ready to pass them with the same alacrity and vigour, although every man in the nation was convinced that they coerced the commerce, and invaded the constitution of this kingdom.